The Christmas tree is long gone, tethered to a post outside my living room window. (I'm not feeding critters this year, but at least it won't be traveling to the drainage ditch in the next big wind.) However, the old nativity scene from my childhood remains on the end table, the shepherd and wise men gathered round to worship the infant king.
Winter, in my childhood (and most adult) days meant snow, lots of it. Christmases were white and January deep and dark. We spent hours traipsing through snow up to our knees and drifts waist high. We walked around the block atop piles of snow created by the ever-passing snowplow. We tried, in vain, to shovel the driveway before Dad returned home from work, but found the task monumental. Dad, with shovel in hand, became a snow moving superhero.
We've had two, maybe three, good snowfalls this season and we're creeping up on February, so I was just a tad disappointed that I didn't have more than a few minutes to capture winter's glory yesterday morning. I took my camera with me just in case and was blessed to have time to drive down by Irondequoit Bay and over the outlet bridge on my way to Rochester.
Traffic was mostly nonexistent on my way up toward Rt 590 and I stopped to catch the snow highlighting every branch and needle on an evergreen tree along the way.
- I came home with a "slightly stale" but beautiful bunch of flowers this afternoon, donated to a local office by Trader Joe's. A lady came in with two buckets full of bouquets and I was blessed to take one home when I left.
What does it mean to love sacrificially? To live broken and given and filled to overflowing?
I'd thought it was just she, talking in the third person like any of us might in a moment of confusion, but she was on my mind as I drove home in the dark the other night. As I approached our driveway I said it out loud. "Oh, Virginia! I don't know what to do," and the thought struck me that perhaps she was repeating what a former caretaker may have repeated over and over himself. After all, wasn't that how I so often felt while taking care of my own aging and forgetful mother?
Same verse twice in a week again. When they show up in multiples, my ears perk up. The mug came from my friend Karen on Thursday evening, January 12, and the same verse was the subject in the next morning's devotional. (I still love when that happens.) And that's just random.
Step four is a tough one, especially without a sponsor. It's been nine months of hearing the steps and being almost too numb to put them into practice... although, in some ways Step 4 is what this adventure in blogging has always been about; looking deep within and seeing my own imperfections in relationships with others (neighbors, friends, siblings, husband, children...). Sometimes I pass the test and other times I fail. Sometimes I fail miserably. Sometimes I can look back and immediately feel good about the exchange, and other times I need to re-evaluate and decide again whether or not my response was right. A right response doesn't always make me or the other party happy. I wish it always did.
The weather maker brought us a bit of freezing rain yesterday afternoon, but my view from the window to the courtyard was just gray and overcast. By the time I went out to leave, the icy glaze on my van was loose and fell easily to the pavement.
This morning the yard was encased in a thin layer of snow-topped ice. I almost made myself late by stopping to snap a few photos. Yard debris encased in ice... Sticks, dry, fallen leaves, and grass. On the other side of the driveway, on the road side of Barn 1, a "rock" rested between tufts of dry grass and bits of icy snow. It wasn't until I looked at the picture that I realized it was actually an old black walnut, still in its wrinkled old skin, and still waiting for a hungry squirrel.
No chips
"Daddy, will you play with me?" he asked. And his daddy was more than happy to oblige, even though he hadn't yet showered and was still dressed in his jammies.
I put in an order for Ann Voskamp's "The Broken Way" a few days ago and today it arrived...
* Our Minnesota family packed up and headed back toward home this evening. It's always hard to say goodbye, but it was a good visit. Austin is full of cuteness. Yesterday his mommy told him he was a little stinker and he replied, "I'm a lil dinker and you're a lil dinker. We ken be lil dinkers togedder." This afternoon he had fun playing rough and tumble with Uncle Ben even hiding Ben's hat under a couch pillow so he wouldn't be able to leave.
* Naughty One is ailing again. He's got a spot on his leg that is healing nicely, and a lump on his head, right between his eyes. It's looking frighteningly like an abscess. I'm not sure what happened, but he does occasionally like to scare the chickens... and he was outside with them just Sunday afternoon when I first noticed a sore by his right eye. I'm afraid a trip to the vet is in our future. I sure hope one day he learns to leave those chickens alone.
* Santa Claus made good on a 46 year old promise this week and delivered a gift that never arrived in 1970. I am now the proud owner of a brand new still-in-the-box Bedsie Beans. (Actually, I am the proud owner of two (so far) Bedsie Beans dolls as another one arrived outside of the original packaging as well. It's almost more fun getting one all these years later than it would have been when I was six or seven. (Thanks, Santa Claus, and your little elf too.)
I gave them books, the grandchildren, and they didn't seem to mind. My own little kids loved books, just like I did when I was a little girl. I have many cherished childhood memories that include picture books or poetry books, my sisters, one of my parents, and the living room couch. When I was very small it was Mom reading to me (The Runaway Pancake, Five Beds for Bitsy, ... ), and later it was Dad reading to us before bed (Disney's Uncle Remus, The Storybook of River Bend, .... ) It's fun to see the tradition passed down to my grandchildren
"While you all were celebrating just another ordinary stroke of midnight, Wesley Robert Teal was making his grand entry. 
